ANDREA FERNANDEZ (Vancouver, Canada)
Biography:
Born in 1987 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, now living in Vancouver, Canada.
She holds a BA in Photography from the University of Brighton, where she developed a passion for the darkroom and analogue processes. She is increasingly interested in the relationship between memories and spaces.
Throughout her career, she gained several years of experience assisting other photographers, including Laura Hynd in the UK, Francesco Tonelli in NY, and Juan Paronetto in Buenos Aires. She has also interned at Vancouver Magazine and at Create Studio in Brighton. She splits her time between her personal photographic practice, and editorial commissions.
Artist Statement:
AS LONG AS YOU KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN WIDE
“…And if a child’s vision of nature can already be loaded with complicating memories, myths and meanings,
how much more elaborately wrought is the frame through which our adult eyes survey the landscape.”
Simon Schama, Landscape and Memory
This landscape project delves into the unintentional links we make between places and memories. What is the relevance of unfamiliar landscapes to my own personal history? We as individuals might feel attracted to those sights which bring remembrance and hence are tinted by some familiarity, representing those spaces present in our memories. I want to explore the idea that we can feel a pull from a place we have never been before; upon first encountering it, it is like a recollection, a feeling of familiarity. Like René Magritte writes about his 1933 painting The Human Condition, “This is how we see the world. We see it outside ourselves, and at the same time we only have a representation of it in ourselves.” With this in mind, I am interested in considering the viewers’ impressions, recollections and emotions when looking at these landscape images. How will they relate and connect with this work? By photographing places unfamiliar to me alongside those of an intimate nature, this series aims to be both personal and universal, both vague and incredibly specific, and most of all, extrospective and self-contemplative, all at the same time.
Practice Statement: How does photographing on film (or using your material photographic process of predilection) inform your artistic practice?
My relationship with photography was nurtured through analogue practices. I like to work on research heavy projects, with a lot of reading and references, and photographing on film meets the natural rhythm of my personal practice. I like to put a lot of thought into the concept, composition and final outcome before setting out to shoot, and using film is the perfect medium to ensure I am taking the time while shooting to consider every aspect. The natural aesthetic, soft colours and organic nature of analogue processes really represent qualities of my work.
